Creation

Creation of the Supreme Court of Justice

The birth of the Supreme Court of Justice is considered to be the Justice Ministry Decree dated 21.8.1848, which transformed what was the supreme judicial forum in civil and criminal cases for the Austrian Crown Lands and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, the ‘Supreme Justice Office’ (which had also carried out the functions of a Ministry of Justice since its establishment in 1749) into the Supreme Court of Justice, establishing Austria’s Supreme Court as an independent final appellate forum.

An Imperial Patent dated 7.8.1850 passed the Act “concerning the Organisation of the Supreme Court of Justice and Cassation in Vienna”. Ludwig Graf Taaffe, since 1834 the President of the Supreme Justice Office, was appointed the first President of the Supreme Court of Justice and Cassation. Territorial jurisdiction extended at that time to all the Crown Lands, and covered 19 Higher Regional Court of Appeal districts.